Archive for April, 2005

Responsible blogging

charukesi April 6th, 2005

I have not read Jon Stock’s The Cardamom Club… but I read Stock in The Week regularly. In the recent issue of The Week, he writes about a Delhi based blogger who has reviewed his book…

…the Internet might seem a thoroughly vast and unanonymous place, but as search engines trawl ever more deeply through the sea of Web pages out there, it’s becoming smaller, more intimate and, ultimately, more accountable. On the whole, I think that’s a good thing. Freedom and responsibility are not such unpleasant bedfellows, are they?

True, does owning your own blog space mean writing what you will without any accountability?

Dina had written about this - the responsibility that comes with power - during the Mediaah controversy….

(Vivek meanwhile is basking in his new found er, popularity?)

‘Stung by the West’

charukesi April 6th, 2005

Ramachandra Guha writes,
The decision to deny Modi entry to the US was inspired, not by abstract ideals of justice, but by hard-nosed realpolitik. But to ensure that no foreign government makes an Indian politician the target of its hypocrisies, we must make sure that the violations that attract foreign scrutiny do not go unpunished by us…

Read on…

Paired Interview Technique

charukesi April 5th, 2005

Fast-tracking research with paired interviews

(link through elearningpost)

Why why do research agencies still cling to conventional beaten-to-death techniques - even though in many situations it is not the best or most efficient method of data collection / analysis - so much so that qualitative research (atleast in India) has become synonymous with focus groups?

I was doing some research for a large agency recently - on television viewing habits and channel preferences - and data collection was through surprise surprise - focus groups - in that situati0n, paired interviews or even family interviews made so much more sense - television viewing is strictly a family decision and the kind of compromises / interplay between family members would have made for fascinating and useful data - by the time I got involved in the project, there was no scope for any thought other than focus groups… and I feel that frustration each time I encounter focus group situations where other simpler tools would have worked better…

Oye Bubbly - the music video?

charukesi April 5th, 2005

The new Pepsi ad - Oye Bubbly - I was wondering which bloggers (s) were going to puke first… Anita says the ad is absolutely horrific…. and Twilight Fairy says Yeh Dil Maange No More…

When the mighty fall, they sure fall hard. I always believed Pepsi (and JWT?) had their finger pulse on their audience in a way that few marketing companies did… With a history of campaigns like Yeh Dil Maange More and Nothing Official About It, Oye Bubbly comes as a nasty shock.

Forget the gross imagery…. Bubbly?? Uh? Apparently the insight behind this ad (which every single consumer / viewer has missed so far) is based on Yeh Pyaas Hai Badi… but thirsty navels?!

Here is a gem from pepsico… The 60-second ad articulates the philosophy behind Pepsi’s popular tagline Yeh Pyaas Hai Badi and comes from the insight that the thirst for a Pepsi is so intense that even inanimate objects lust for it, says Businessline. This article also says that more activities are planned around the Oye Bubbly theme - including a music video!

Economic Times says As part of the Oey Bubbly campaign, Pepsi is bringing out a music video titled ‘Oey Bubbly! -the Bubbly Grind’. The music video features host of Bollywood and cricket stars including Amitabh Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Irfaan Pathan, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and Mohammad Kaif

I can only say - Thank God I have missed this video so far… And I hope it stays missed…

Gender (in)equations

charukesi April 4th, 2005

Just finished reading The Female Eunuch - at first read, the book sure packs a punch - ‘full of bile and insight’ says a review on the blurb - and the bile kind of spills over from the pages on to your hands…

It must have made tremendous sense for the time in which it was written - but I could not fully comprehend the resentment and anger behind some of the sentiments expressed by Greer…

I am not saying that gender equations have changed dramatically in the last few decades making this set of essays completely irerelevant - just that somehow, today, the bra-burning, man-bashing kind of feminism seems so misplaced…

While on this, have been seeing lots of media bytes recently on the ‘women - different?’ theme - brain composition, career issues, the works… In her blog, Rashmi Bansal has reproduced the piece she has recently written for BusinessWorld - MBA Women…

And in the same issue of BusinessWorld, Mahesh Murthy in his regular column ‘on the contrary’ writes about ‘the era of disposable jobs - a rant about young people not taking their careers (and corporate responsibilities) seriously… He writes (emphasis mine), they are all typically SEC A. Typically from well-off families where the parents worked hard to get these kids where they are. And a large number of them, sadly, seem to be female‘

Uh? This because one young SEC A type (what exactly is SEC A type - in eight years in market research, I have not been able to figure this out) female rejected his job offer and did not bother to inform him of her decision, suddenly their emerges a ‘typical’ group - comprising typically females…?

And what does this say about the other thousands of young women who do take their careers seriously and do not live off their parents’ money ?

Which is essentially what the Business World cover story points out - that women have to work doubly hard and more to get to the top - and still put up with nay sayers on her way… Seems to me things have not changed much since Greer’s times….?

Creative writing competition

charukesi April 4th, 2005

An update from my publisher friend - the Unisun Creative Writing Competition is on. In association with the British Council. Check it out.

Blogs - as promotion tools for books?

charukesi April 3rd, 2005

A publisher acquaintance from Bangalore has written to me asking for creative ways of sales promotion for hius new venture - his publishing venture is just a year old and focuses on original English writing from india - they have recently featured their publications at the recent London Book Fair…

His is a small business which cannot afford conventional advertising/ marketing channels - also, I believe that they may not be the best for a category like books. He believes that blogging can be an innovative and cost effective tool for promoting his new books and ask for ideas.

Please leave your comments and suggestions that I may pass on to him…

Do ads still work?

charukesi April 2nd, 2005

Oops ! Do ads still work?? (assuming they ever did?) - asks Ken Auletta in The New Yorker

Interesting perspective on how ad agencies and clients are tackling fragmented audiences through creative placement of ads - not just creative ads… which is why we see ads at the least expected places and times - in the middle of movies and your email for instance…

The traditional assumption, as Keith Reinhard says, was that advertisers chose the time and place of a “one-way show-and-tell” ad. The consumer was a captive audience. Today, advertisers chase consumers with a certain air of desperation… And consumers in turn hunt for newer methods of blocking such ad content… pop up blocks for one…

Read on…

Books as crisis aids

charukesi April 2nd, 2005

Fairytale mothers and fathers - are books used as rehabilitation tools for children traumatised through events beyond their understanding (ok, for that matter who can claim to understand a bomb blast or even an earthquake)…

This piece in Indian Express says that books provide children with a sense of security (constancy?), companionship and help them know new worlds and possibly remember their own world with happiness…

This combination of books and theatre proved very successfull with traumatised children orphaned during the earthquake in Latur, but can be replicated with traumatised children anywhere.

‘The writer of possibilities’

charukesi April 1st, 2005

Just as I have started reading Jayakantan’s Oru Manidan, Oru Veedu, Oru Ulagam - (translated roughly as ‘a man, a house, a world) highly recommended by my mother, I saw this piece on the prolific writer in Indian Express. The writer of possibilities - has recently won the Jnanpith Award - for the year 2002 (uh?).

I remember watching Sila Nerangalil Sila Manidargal as a teenager and being moved by the story. Easily one of his best novels - made into a movie - had a scintillating performance by Lakshmi. The protagonist is seduced (raped?) as a young woman and takes on the world and her orthodox family and goes on to make friends with her seducer. Her ‘cleansing’ happens not with the gangajalam - her mother sprinkles liberally on her head - but through her interactions with her violater… Sensibilities way ahead of their times - for the seventies, and even for now.

Amit Varma has written about this piece in IE and laments about regional language works never seeing the light of day among a larger audience for lack of translators. And I say, lack of interest too among publishers… ? Or is it that there is no audience for English translations of regional works?

Badri, are you listening?

Note : Amit has further updates on his post - seek and you shall find. As a fervent seeker and non finder, I have to say that even original publications - never mind translations - have become hard to come by - in the last week or so in Madras I have been to a number of small publishing houses around T nagar and have only heard - not in stock - as stock reply…

« Prev